Abstract
Keith Thomas wrote in 1971:
We are, therefore, forced to the conclusion that men emancipated themselves from these magical beliefs without necessarily having devised any effective technology with which to replace them. In the seventeenth century they were able to take this step because magic was ceasing to be intellectually acceptable, and because their religion taught them to try self-help before invoking supernatural aid. But the ultimate origins of this faith in unaided human capacity remain mysterious.1
Why did magic decline? Where did people find the confidence to confront and examine the world, without fear of mysterious powers imbuing the objects they handled? Why did people begin to look to their own power without recourse to techniques which call upon higher powers? What is more, what was it that encouraged people to overcome their fear of the world in general and begin to look upon it positively, as a thing to be explored and utilised? Keith Thomas, in his book Religion and the Decline of Magic, surveyed a range of options for the decline of magic, but returned to this point: people in the sixteenth century found an acceptable alternative to magic, and Thomas did not know whence it came. Since Thomas, though other works have been written on magic, no one seems to have taken up this challenge.
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Notes
K. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England (Harmondsworth, 1971) p. 794.
Thomas describes aspects of the Protestant attack on magic, and concludes that this affected belief in the supernatural power in physical objects: ‘Many men were now unwilling to believe that physical objects could change their nature by a ritual of exorcism and consecration’ (p. 86). However Thomas focuses only on the negative aspect: the removal of means of supernatural aid for the individual: ‘He could no longer rely upon the intercession of intermediaries, whether saints or clergy; neither could he trust in an imposing apparatus of ceremonial in the hope of prevailing upon God to grant his desires’ (p. 87). The implicit question is ‘Well then, on what could he rely?’ Thomas highlights this at the end of his chapter ‘The Impact of the Reformation’ (p. 89) with the reminder that the problems of life remained—plague, disease, fear. If the Reformers had removed the magic of the church, what would take its place? I believe the Reformers answered with their doctrine of the sovereign fatherhood of God, which Thomas does not explore fully.
The literature on magic is immense. Despite my difficulties with Thomas’ view of the English Reformers (a small part of his work) his book Religion and the Decline of Magic is still arguably the best survey of magical practices in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. A few other works: Wilfrid Bonser, The Medical Background of Anglo-Saxon England: A Study in History, Psychology, and Folklore (London, 1963) deals with the English material until the eleventh century;
Richard Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1989), is a very helpful study of medieval practices;
Richard Cavendish, A History of Magic (London, 1977) is a less scholarly general history of magic. I have not included in this paper the more learned magic of alchemy, astrology, Paracelsianism and the Hermetic tradition.
Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages, p. 56.
Bonser, The Medical Background of Anglo-Saxon England, p. 120.
Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages, p. 72.
Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages, p. 71; Bonser, The Medical Background of Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 241–243; Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, p. 212.
Bonser, The Medical Background of Anglo-Saxon England, p. 252
Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages, p. 70; Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, p. 211.
Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages, p. 71; Dawson, George, Healing: Pagan and Christian (London, 1935) p. 162.
Bonser, The Medical Background of Anglo-Saxon England, p. 245; Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, p. 213.
Bonser, The Medical Background of Anglo-Saxon England, p. 216.
Ibid., p. 221.
Brody, Saul Nathanial, The Disease of the Soul: Leprosy in Medieval Literature (Ithaca, 1974) p. 72.
Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages, p. 61.
Bonser, The Medical Background of Anglo-Saxon England, p. 223.
Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages, p. 75; Bonser, The Medical Background of Anglo-Saxon England, p. 231.
Bonser, The Medical Background of Anglo-Saxon England, p. 236; Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages, p. 77; Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, p. 212.
Dawson, Healing, p. 171.
Bonser, The Medical Background of Anglo-Saxon England, p. 225.
Cavendish, A History of Magic, p. 51; Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, pp. 38–9. The
Book of Common Prayer warned against people who carried the sacrament away in their mouths and ‘diversly abused it to superstition and wickedness’ (p. 99).
Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages, p. 79; Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, p. 39.
Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages, p. 78. See also Cavendish, A History of Magic, p. 50.
Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages, p. 67; Bonser, The Medical Background of Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 223–24, 228–30.
See Kieckhefer’s discussion of definitions of magic, pp. 14–6. Thomas also rejects this hard distinction between magic and religion as being useful in theory but blurred in practice, p. 46.
The word ‘supernatural’ is used in this paper in its general sense as a convenient label for spiritual and occult forces or entities, and does not reflect the kind of detailed analysis of medieval technical usage that Keith Hutchison has so ably done.
For instance, this view is propounded by Augustine, The City of God, VIII.19.
Finucane, Ronald C., Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Beliefs in Medieval England (London, 1977) p. 18.
Bonser, The Medical Background of Anglo-Saxon England, p. 127; Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, p. 28, Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims, p. 20.
Bonser, The Medical Background of Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 172, 178f; Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims, p. 17; Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity (Chicago, 1981) gives an excellent analysis of this topic.
Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims, pp. 27, 48.
Ibid., p. 202.
Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, p. 32.
Ibid.
Dawson, Healing, p. 163.
Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims, p. 19.
Bonser, The Medical Background of Anglo-Saxon England, p. 129, pp. 148–50.
Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims, p. 38.
Bonser describes these practices as they were used in conjunction with the relics of St Oswald and St Petroc (p. 187).
Bonser, The Medical Background of Anglo-Saxon England, p. 119.
Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages, p. 10.
Cranmer, Thomas, Works, edited for the Parker Society in two volumes, Vol II, p. 147.
Cranmer II, p. 158.
Tyndale, William, Works, edited by Rev Henry Walter for the Parker Society in three volumes, Vol III, p. 7.
Ibid.
Tyndale III, p.
Cranmer II, p. 155.
Cranmer II, p. 156
The Two Liturgies, A.D. 1549 and A.D. 1552, With Other Documents Set Forth by Authority in the Reign of King Edward VI, edited by Joseph Ketley for the Parker Society, p. 99.
Cranmer II, p. 148.
Cranmer I, p. 20.
Tyndale II, p. 12.
Tyndale III, p. 149.
Tyndale III, p. 62.
Two Liturgies, pp. 35, 225.
Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, p. 130.
Ibid., p. 132.
Ibid., p. 131.
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Birkett, K. (2000). Early English Reformers and Magical Healing. In: Freeland, G., Corones, A. (eds) 1543 and All That. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 13. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9478-3_10
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